Top Best, Worst Domain Registrars Till Date: My Review & Experiences

Domain name is usually the first thing to buy when planing to take your business online, the choice of a domain registrar can affect the longevity of your business.

If like us, you are a web developer, a freelancer and/or a niche blogger, you must have been faced with the challenges of choosing a domain name registrar that cares more about your business than its profit.

Few hours ago, we published the list of Top Best and Worst Web Hosting Companies and thought it wise to do the same thing for domain name registrars since we’ve used a lot of them and can confidently share our experiences as well as give a perspicacious verdict based on –

The Best Domain Name Registrars

We’ll like to start with the best domain name registration companies as they should matter to you first before the average and worst domain registrars.

1. NameSilo

NameSilo made us realize that there are still honest companies that values its client more than profit. They are focused on selling and protecting your domain name than they are on up-selling or cross-selling one useless add-on to you like some other domain registrars do.

At Namesilo, there’s neither a hidden fee, transfer and renewal charges nor minimum orders, bait and other negative tactics most registrars uses to hoodwink users to their services.

Namesilo do not sell domain names at $1 and then renews at $16. All premium add-on such as: domain defender, free whois privacy, free domain parking, email forwarding and registry lock comes for free. With a Namesilo account, you’ll get a free –

Lifetime WHOIS Privacy

Email Forwarding

Domain Name Parking (You earn 100%)

Domain Defender Protection

DNS Management Tools

Custom WHOIS Records

Domain Forwarding

Portfolio Management (with plethora of templates)

Registry Lock and

Sub-Account Tools

We have written a review of NameSilo here, you can read about them from their or visit their official homepage for more. Using the NameSilo coupon code “silorocks15” (without the quotes) will remove a dollar (1USD) from your total order .

2. Name Cheap

NameCheap is another domain name registrar that served us well enough to be listed among one of the best domain name registration companies to trust.

Their interface is worth it, their support (for domain) is good and knowledgeable enough to attend to every domain name related technicalities.

They have lots of TLD support including the .xyz extension. We’ve used their services long before deciding to go with NameSilo.

One great feature we appreciate from the guys at NameCheap is the ease of payments and services’ cancellation. You can add as much funds as possible in your namecheap wallet and use those for renewals and purchase of new services.

It is super easy to make a budget plan for your domain and businesses with the namecheap wallet function. Troubles tickets at namecheap is answered by real human and customer support is never treated with negligence.

NameCheap Promotions: Just like other top domain registration companies, Namecheap do have promotional prices for new users and old customers alike from time to time. There is the DOMBLOOM coupon code that lets one buy top level domain names (TLD) at a discounted rate.

One of their best promotion is the one that lets you buy a full year NameCheap value hosting server for less than $10and you can host up-to three (3) websites on it.

3. Google Domains

Even though support is usually a major issue with most mainstream services providers (such as Yahoo small business, EIG and co), Google domains is surprisingly different.

With Google domains, you’ll have the chance to use a highly intuitive domain management dashboard with zero ads, zero distractions and zero upselling/cross-selling tactics.

There’s a $12 flat pricing for domains bought from Google domains and this is without any hidden charges. You can see more from their official website at google.com/domains.

4. IwantMyName

iwantmyname came highly recommended by friends and colleagues in the industry, so we decided to give them a shot for some of our recent projects.

Namesilo (as stated above) is usually our most-preferred choice for buying simple domain names, but their TLDs support is limited.

This normally gives us the room to try out other domain name companies when signing up for domains with country code domain extensions (ccTLDs).

IwantMyName has served us so well and does have one of the simplest management dashboard so far. Their billing/sign up process is straight-forward with zero cross-selling/up-selling.

There’s the pre-configured DNS tool that lets you install blogger, Weebly, Wix, tumblr, Squarespace, Google apps, TypePad and other popular services in seconds. This tool comes for free and works well with all popular services on the web.

Their support team is responsive and like Namesilo, they offer completely free Whois privacy protection for all top-level domains (TLDs).

The only down-side with IwantMyName domain services is in pricing and (maybe) their ICANN accreditation status. We paid as much as $19 for a ccTLD. This is about $8 more than what’s obtainable at most popular registrars.

Such amount can be traded for top-notched support and fast DNS servers on a single domain name purchase, but can become too pricey for bulk domain orders.

In all, I-want-my-name is a good place to buy your domain names if pricing is not the sole driving force. You can key-in to their services by using the domain search bar at their official website.

The Average Domain Name Registrars

The domain registrars listed here aren’t bad at all, they just didn’t cut into the ones we could list in the best category. We’ve had one dissatisfaction or the other with them and as such will recommend any other one from the top before coming to them.

Name.com

Name.com is just as good as name cheap. Just like what we do like and appreciate; they do not use bait and switch tactics like most greedy domain registrars does.

We have had all round great experiences with name.com services and can recommend same to clients and developers alike.

Their prices aren’t just fair enough but is also very transparent, unlike some domain registrars that will sell a domain for cheap and renew at ridiculous prices.

With a name.com domain name, you can transfer your domain name to another registrar (like we transferred to namesilo) in a short while without waiting for ages to get the EPP code for transfer. We already made a short review of their services, you can read it up from here.

Domain.com

domain.com hosted about three domain names for us and really served well, we weren’t that much impressed with their support team handling of technical issues but can vouch for their response time.

Their interface is user-friendly enough than a novice user will blink an eye in awe. They neither offer free Whois privacy nor domain protection but do for domain forwarding and custom DNS.

Warning: Domain.com DNS update is extremely slow and disappointing, except you opt-in to their premium DNS extras. The last two experiences I had while trying to set up a custom domain name mapping for squarespace.com services was so bad that I have to source for an external DNS service to map them correctly.

Enom Central

enom is no mean name in domain name registration services and powers majority of domain name resellers. We’ve used them in the past and can tell their support is really top-notched and answers technical questions like a pro.

Their dashboard might seem complicated at the first but provides access to tools and DIY guides needed to make the best out of your domain name.

Dotster

We’ve only had to contact dotster support team once and was not that much impressed with it, but their services are really great and worthy of a recommendation.

With a domain at dotster, you’ll get custom DNS management tools, domain forwarding and sundry. Their services is great overall even though they do not offer free whois privacy and formidable domain protection tools.

Dynadot

In dynadot, there is the domain auction for expired domains and a support team that really cares for the clients. Our experience with dynadot isn’t as great as it is with namesilo and name cheap but wasn’t as annoying as the ones below.

Below Average Registrars

This ones didn’t just make the cut for us, Upselling and cross-selling techniques is not frowned at here, to them it is all part of the game and makes them masters at the game of greedy marketing techniques.

Their support is usually not the best for technical challenges and are better off avoided.

I fell for 1and1 services in the first place as a result of their aggressive promotion for 1st year domain name and hosting services. It blinded my eyes from looking around the internet for honest reviews from real users of their services.

Of course, there are lots of painful complaints from real users of 1and1 domain and hosting services that would have deterred me from patronizing them.

Attempting to transfer a services from 1and1 could be a pain in the ass, so you must prepare to read tons of tutorials when making plans to move away from them.

In Worst case scenario, they will continue billing your credit card for a difficult-to-cancel service, even after getting in touch with their (‘never-interested-in-resolving-issues’) customer support.

Update: Godaddy has improved in their domain name services, but still bad with their hosting and services’ up-selling that most-times pushes one to buy something he’s really not interested on.

We’ll remove them from this worst section for domain name registrars as soon as they improve on their aggressive cross-selling tactics.

What More?

This is our submission and meant to serve as a guide and not a sanction, you aren’t going to lose your domain name to any of the listed providers except when not renewed on time.

Recall that the domain name registrars used, grouped and shared in this list is: –

NameSilo

NameCheap

Google Domains

iwantmyname

Name.com

Domain.com

Enom Central

Dotster

Dynadot

Register.com

Yahoo Small Business

Network Solutions

Godaddy and

1and1

We can afford to use even the worst domain name registrars in our list because we are used to all the technicalities associated with domain name setup.

NameSilo provides the best support and domain security, that, we can assure you. You can help us improve on this list by sharing your experiences on best domain registrars or worst domain name registrars based on your personal review.

Remember to choose wisely as – the domain name registrar used would play a significant role in your business success.

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About Obasi Miracle

Obasi Miracle is one of the brains behind 3rd Planet Techies. A webdesign afficionado and IT Support brain-box, he flourishes and revel in helping many-a-techies in their aspiration to become the best they can.

Comments

Anonsays

Ummm … you’ve missed the total disaster that is Moniker ….. just do a little Google search …. try ‘The new Moniker – love it or hate it?’ ….

I came here looking for a registrar other than my current Namecheap. I am in the process of losing two of my domains through Namecheap as their Autorenew function is faulty. Clearly, I cannot recommend Namecheap. However thanks to this article, I will take a good look at Name.com and Namesilo. Namesilo seems to have a pretty good api and unlike Namecheap, they are not re-sellers and they also publish their full contact info (telephone number)in case of problems like I had.

Name.com is owned by NameCheap! And ENOM owns both of these companies! -So all 3 are owned by same company.

It’s all a mess to be honest. I’m having trouble with NameCheap after working with them for 9 years now. They only register my domain name and said I had fraud trouble? Fraud by whom? Me? I don’t think so. Got a “help ticket” and haven’t heard from them in 48 hours….. great customer service.

I guess I’ll real time chat with another Namecheap agent and get nowhere again today.

I must say I not surprised to see Namecheap in the first list, however after many years as a customer, I just lost two domains because their autorenew functionality does not work reliably. I can no longer recommend Namecheap. On top of this, it was damn hard to find a phone number … many other registrars give you phone number access… essential when you need to talk to a person on critical issues.

1&1 IS THE WORST! After applying for a domain (which supposedly includes WhoIs Privacy), I got a crap load of spam. Literally 50 emails every day! On top of that, their contract and customer service sucks. No refunds and you can’t deregister your domain, you have to wait until it expires. I only wish I’d seen your article sooner.

Hey, Obasi. I’m the CTO for a relatively new Registrar (Porkbun.com) and was the original developer for what became Name.com and was one of the first developers at Doster as well. First, great article and I think your picks are pretty spot on although I do have a bias toward Name.com since it used to be my baby. I’d love to talk to you about a few things via email if you wouldn’t mind. Thanks!

I too lost a domain name from NameCheap because of the faulty autorenew and they didn’t contact me as the technical and admin contact. The update website, is very slow and sometimes doesn’t work well in different browsers. I’m in the process of looking for another hosting and domain provider. Stay away from GoDaddy by the way.

Even though I haven’t had such negative issues with Namecheap except for their hosting services, it is worth looking into since more than a person is already experiencing similar problems.

I will get in touch with some members of our editorial team to see if this is a bug. If it is, I’d have to get in touch with Namecheap support about it and then demote them from a-top our list of best domain name registrars.

We do not particularly recommend their hosting services but would advice you look through our top 5 list here to see what meets your business requirement.

i would diffidently recommend —-NameSilo.com—- i have 100s of domains registered with almost all well known Registrars but till now i can just recommend only— NameSilo —one more thing is you don’t need to worry about the design and the look of the website as this is not important if you get speed and tones of functionalities for FREE. so think about it.

they have more than 500k domains under their Management so it is very much safe for companies and NameBranding.

i am not working with them or have any personal contact with anyone working in NameSilo, and i live in Dubai.

Um! if Godaddy is the worst domain registrar then why it is managing more than 61 million domains. It may be worst in web hosting but its best for domain registration. Don’t lay on bad reviews of Godaddy is also cheap and best.

Godaddy is obviously one of the earliest domain registrar and spends million of dollars in various promotion annually. Their huge acquisition in the past has also placed them in a better position for such.

But in all, our post isn’t trying to discourage anyone from using them but to create a pointer to our best experiences for domain registrars when support and value-for-money is the priority.

NameSilo is the WORST at taking down fraudulent domains. If you report criminal activity on domains in their purview, they will cry, “But we’re not the hoster! We’re not the hoster!” like little bitches.

They also have the worst customer service I have ever encountered. It’s virtually non-existent. Avoid at all costs!

Namesilo do not have hosting functionalities at the moment, so it’s best to report DMCA concerns to the hosting company. Haven’t had a negative experience with their tech support yet. Thanks for dropping by to share your personal experience with Namesilo domain services.

I agree with your review. But one thing most of the reviews I have read online usually based it on both their hosting services along domain registration, which I feel is wrong. Imagine some people naming web hosting companies as top domain registrars just because they also host domains.

Namesilo offers better services but they are not as popular as the rest. Godaddy still remains the topmost as they are the largest domain name registrars. I blog about domains at DomainDome.

I would like to see an article on ehics in regards to their spam policies.I would like to see Government intervention in the isps/domain hosters by way of regular auditing..Clearly,they cant Police themselves,hence spam is out of control.When challenged as a spam hoster,they duck for cover.Disgraceful.